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Sunday, July 22, 2018

I never blogged about the most exciting addition to our family besides our two girls - our mini Goldendoodle puppy, Murray. I know people will wonder why we didn't rescue and it's not really something that needs defending, but: Emmeline has allergies, so we needed a non-shedding dog, and many rescues won't work with families with young kids. We watched rescues and our local humane society for over a year waiting for the right dog to come along, but when that didn't pan out (over and over again) we decided to go with a breeder. We've had rescue dogs before and we will again when the girls are grown, but for now, a breeder was the right decision for our family.

We added Murray to our family in early December 2017 (he actually came home on Chris's birthday) and he was amazing and so incredibly loved by everyone - even Chris, who liked to grumble about him but would turn around and scoop him up for pets the second he came home, and who I found cuddling together in Chris's recliner more than once. He absolutely loved people and other dogs (though he liked to announce his presence to other dogs with loud barking...the second they'd get close, he'd want to play play play). Carys loved to wrestle with him and lay on the floor while he'd lick her face incessantly (and when I'd say, 'Murray, off!' she'd say, 'No, mom, I love it!!'). Emmeline loved to train him and practice the "leave it" command with him. Both girls were at their happiest when they'd be watching a movie and he'd jump on the couch and cuddle them. They'd even fight about who he greeted first when we came home from being gone. And me? I loved taking him on late night walks, and I loved the special time in the morning when he'd wake me up early to go out and I'd fall asleep on the couch and he'd cuddle up behind my knees with his head on my leg.

And I'm devastated to say that last week, in a horrific accident, he was killed. The front door was left open, and while he wasn't a door dasher, if a door is wide open and his people are outside...he's going to go outside. People were in our yard and he ran over to say hi and my biggest life regret is that they weren't able to grab him at that point...and then he ran across the street. As he was running back to us, he was hit by a car who was speeding down the street (conflicting reports as to whether the person was on the phone, and I can't bear to look at the video footage to see). He survived the hit with no external injuries, but it was clear he was hurt.

I immediately took him to the emergency vet, where they let us know he had massive internal injuries. They did their best to stabilize him, but that night called to let us know he was declining and needed surgery ASAP. They didn't think he'd survive being put under, much less the surgery, but he amazed everyone by surviving both. The next day we visited him and left him some drawings the girls had made, and that night we got our nightly update call that things were actually looking okay and for the first time the vet was able to use the words "cautiously optimistic." Unfortunately, just two hours after that, we got a call that he'd gone into cardiac arrest. Basically, at that time, our entire family melted down: Emmeline didn't understand what was going on, but was sobbing because everyone else was sobbing, Carys knew as soon as she saw my face what the vet had said and immediately became hysterical, I knew as soon as I answered the phone that it was going to be bad news and had already started becoming emotional, and lost it as soon as they uttered the words, and Chris just said, "FUCK!" and hugged us. My parents came over to comfort us and I don't think I've ever slept so badly as I did that night.

He was only 9 months old.

We opted to have him cremated with the remains (what an awful, awful word) returned to us. We got a beautiful carved wooden box for him, and Carys asked if she could have a necklace to put some ashes in, so we let her pick one out from Etsy.

I can't bear to look at pictures of him yet, so it's hard to add pictures to this post, but you deserve to see what a gorgeous, wonderful boy he was.

These are two pics Carys took the day before he was killed. He'd gotten shaved down for the summer a couple weeks ago, so his hair is super short. We'd just come back in from being outside and he was tired, so the girls made him a pillow bed. Carys woke him up taking these pictures, and I took the phone away and said to leave him alone so he could nap, and he fell right back asleep. I'm so, so, so glad she got these pictures taken, even though he looks SO tired...because I had no idea these would be the last pics of him.

And one I just happened to already have uploaded to Blogger that I never published and it popped up on me when I was adding the pics above - he was about 5 months old here, I think.

And then we were lucky enough to have him in some pro pics we did a couple months ago (pre-shaved) and I'll always be thankful that I decided to bring him with us to the shoot so we have these pictures.

2 comments:

Pet owners often wonder - what they should do to keep their pets healthy; is there a decorum they should follow? Pets are like family members that need to be fostered with care. It's a very responsible task as a cat carrier owner to keep the pet in check. There are various important things that need to be taken care of if you want to be a proud owner of a pet.